Whatever You Call It, It Is Still a Cold

Author Robert Fulghum (Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten) stated that one of the things we learn in kindergarten is "sharing".  I am all for sharing except for during the cold and flu season--which it seems we entered into several months ago here in Big Sky Country.  As I wrote, I am all for sharing and it seems that my luck only allows people to share their colds and flu with me.  For over a week my wife has been fighting a cold--it comes and goes--and she finally decided that it would be much more fun if she shared it . . . so she shared it with me.  "Merry Christmas!" she said.

Nasopharyngitis, rhinopharyngitis, acute coryza--whatever you call it it is still the common cold.  A cold is a viral infection of the upper respiratory system that primarily affects the nose.  The upper respiratory system is a pretty effective little system when it is working well, but when it gets out of whack it becomes a messy, runny, snotty pain in the . . . head!  Thanks to the wife it is all mine now!

Unassumingly the first symptoms of the cold arrived a couple of nights ago--draining sinuses.  My sinuses draining is not uncommon for me and it happens every so often--usually for a night, they stop, and life goes on.  Not this time!  Nope, they decided to drain for two straight nights--drip, drip, drip.  I never knew one small cavity could create so much snot!  And, then it stopped yesterday morning leaving an inflamed throat as its only tell-tale sign.  Life seemed good and I thought I was going to get luck and escape the nasty ol' rhinopharyngitis . . . but, no!  No, by late afternoon it returned not only with the post nasal drip, but the frontal nasal drip--more commonly known as the "runny nose".

I've been trying to catch it ever since!

This morning I woke up--after a fitful night of sleep--with a full-blown cold!  There was the sore throat from the drainage--which created a cough to remove all that drainage from the back of my throat.  A runny nose that created a tendency to sneeze.  No longer was it the simple "drip, drip, drip", but a new rhythm of "drip, cough, sneeze"!  There was light headedness.  The right hemisphere sinuses throbbing because they were stuffed up, while the left hemisphere sinuses were flowing freely.  Which would be okay except that my sinuses have taken to heart Fulghum's idea of sharing, so the right and left hemispheres are playing tag as they alternate back and forth between being stuffed and free flowing. 

The worse thing about having a cold is the runny nose.  I am thankful that we have plenty of tissues around to take care of that escaping fluid, but I am more thankful for long sleeves!  Long sleeves are perfect for those times when there are no tissues around and one has to wipe his or her nose.  Where in the world do you think they came up with that phrase "green sleeves"?  It is not a musical term, it is a part of the common cold.  But a constantly running nose is no fun but I did find some innovative ideas that I think would make contenting with a runny nose easier:

Based on experience  figure I am probably one-third of the way through the present version of this common cold that my wife so lovingly shared with me.  There will be a brief period of what seems to be a miraculous recovery--which is actually the lull before the full pledge storm, then the whole nasty business of the cold, followed by the slow demise of the symptoms . . . until one day I wake up, the light headedness is gone, I'm not sneezing or coughing, and I can breathe.  But that is a couple of days away.  In the meantime I thinking about writing some sort of a rap song that goes with "drip, cough, sneeze"!  Whatever you call it, it is still the common cold.  Welcome to my world!